I consider myself a reasonable person. I don't lose my temper at the retail counter. I pay a higher price when something is rung up incorrectly (except the NYC toilet paper incident a few months back, which was so humiliating to me that I will likely never speak up again). I've never sent a meal back, even when something was incorrect. I don't chew out the postal workers over how few counters they have open at one time. True that I don't like confrontation, but mostly these things just aren't that big of a deal. While I may have to eat a salad with onion or miss the train I was hoping to catch or pay a little more for cat food, life goes on.

There is one area, however, that gets the better of me almost every time there is a problem, and that's air travel. Granted, for as often as I travel, I've had what I would consider disasters only a handful of times, but this past weekend I experienced a doozy when a particular airline, we'll call them Shrontier, changed my departure time by a whopping 6 hours and didn't communicate it to me, causing me to miss my flight. What shocked me even more than Shrontier's lack of communication was their lack of willingness to own up to their mistake, their lack of willingness do to anything to help me. And most shocking of all, they expected me to buy a replacement ticket! I fine scheme that is, and even as I've tried to report the incident after the fact, Shrontier's stance remains, "It wasn't our fault." Some system on their end shows it was communicated by email (not sufficient, if you ask me) even though there is no such email in my inbox, trash, or junk mail.

I'm just wondering what happened to customer service. What happened to taking care of your customers, to the Nordstrom-like attitude that accommodates customer complaints and makes things right at even the vaguest hint of dissatisfaction? Especially since in this case, there was nothing vague about it. Shrontier was blatantly at fault, and it's disappointing that airlines don't try harder to cultivate loyal customers. So this is me, openly shaming Shrontier. For losing me as a customer, and for failing to do the right thing.